


With Dew Consideration

by lothering



Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: (Almost) Everybody Lives, Gen, M/M, Post-Project Freelancer
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-11
Updated: 2015-07-11
Packaged: 2018-04-08 18:28:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 973
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4315695
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lothering/pseuds/lothering
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Of stagnant post-war lives, camping, and appreciation.</p>
<p>---</p>
<p>
  <i>"North was the only thing bearable in all of it."</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	With Dew Consideration

The dew dampened clover moistened the back of his clothing as he stretched out in the field. In the high sky above, sunlight broke the seal on the horizon, puffy cotton candy pink clouds drifting lazily to the tune of morning birdsong. Not that York was paying much attention to these details, mind you. He had something vastly more compelling to sway his thoughts at that moment.

Presently, stretched out beside him with an arm slung around the brunet's waist, face pressed into said man's shoulder, North dozed in fits. His knee would shift on occasion, knocking against York's own and at times sliding over and pinning him down at the thigh. At the shift of a breeze, or a particularly loud rustling in the trees beyond the field, the fairer man would jerk awake minutely. Eyes rolling open, those bright irises would shift side-to-side in the quickest of glances, searching for the harmless disturbance before sleep inevitably tugged him deep down once more. The heat of his body against York's side was welcome in the cool dawn, the contact of face to shoulder, hand to waist, knee to thigh grounding him yet leaving him buzzing with frenetic energy both at once.

They had gone camping on a whim, escaping the sordid sprawl and demands of the city and their jobs for a week of hacking it out amongst conifers, mosquitoes and a goddamn honest-to-goodness babbling brook (the later of which, North would later find, drove him to rise frequently during the night to empty his bladder). Compared to some of the digs they had crashed in on Project missions in the past, their little campsite was gloriously quaint and comfortable, though they had misjudged how much room they both took up in the two person tent, especially when one of said two men was a modern day Goliath. Still, hunching down in shared sleeping bags at the night, surrounded by the earthy scent of the ground and the sharp tang of pine trees brought some semblance of peace to the two men. Take away the tent and the sleeping bags and throw in a couple of Spartan grade armour, and it was just another night spent out in dirt, tracking a mark or waiting for shit to go down. 

But they weren't soldiers anymore. There was no war, there was no Director or Project Freelancer, and there were no suits of armour or stake-out missions in sandy dunes or shady aisles. York was a computer tech - didn't need two eyes to look at a computer screen or tell an elderly man over the phone to turn his computer off and then on again - and North was a personal trainer. Not that they were shitty jobs per se, but compared to the blazing guns and interplanetary travel involved in their previous career field, well. It was easy to grow tired of their sedentary jobs in an unchanging, thoroughly _average_ city. 

Was it sick of him to say that he missed the action? He wasn't proud of the number of men and women he had killed, but the adrenaline had been addictive. The constant motion of 'do this or die' kept him agile, kept his mind sharp and focused, his body physically and mentally sharped into a lethal weapon. There was nothing of the sort now, nothing beyond slouching at a desk, feeling his focus and drive slowly drip away, leaving him dull and restless. He didn't share any of this with North, but he could see the same symptoms in the other man - the way his hand would twitch to grasp at a gun that was no longer there; how his knee would bounce constantly, eyes darting to and fro just looking for something, _anything_ , to do.

North was the only thing bearable in all of it. 

At the thought, York glanced at the man who had once again dozed off on his shoulder. They had kept in contact briefly with the others from Project Freelancer - the ones who lived, at least - but that had dried up with the passing of time. Nobody knew where Carolina or Wash were, these days, and South...Well, South preferred to be anywhere that didn't require her to settle down for longer than a few months. Last they heard of her, she was floating around somewhere in the Sol system. Not that she had been very specific in her letters, as infrequently as they came.

In that regard, York surmised that he had been pretty damn lucky that the twins hadn't run off together. Somehow, for reasons that the blinded man couldn't begin to fathom, North had seen fit to remain Earthside with him, which had inevitably lead to searching for somewhere to crash while their pensions were worked out, then turned into getting serious 'jobs' and eventually landed them in each other's beds. Which, if York were to be honest, had been the best thing to happen to him in the last decade, guns and space travel and adrenaline rushes be damned.

Turning, the brunet pressed his lips to the mop of white blond hair nestled against his shoulder.

"I don't know what I did to deserve you, but whatever it was, I'm glad I did it."

Bright blue eyes blinked open sleepily at the touch, and the timbre of York's voice. Slowly - as slow as the fingers of dawn spreading out across the sky - a smile stole over the drowsy man. "You are such a ridiculous sap, did you know that?" Drawing himself tighter against his lover, North yawned. "But I'm glad, too. Now shut up and let me sleep."

Chuckling, York closed his eyes and nestled deep into the sodden clover, disregarding some now seriously uncomfortably damp clothes.

"Alright, Sleeping Beauty. Your wish is my command."

"Don't make me hit you."

"Right. Shutting up."


End file.
